Council to Poll Upperclass Opinion Of G.E. Courses, Will Issue Report

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
September 27, 1951

Upperclassmen will soon be asked to voice their gripes and praises of the General Education courses when the Student Council starts sending out polls next week. Since last March a five-man committee headed by Robert A. Cole '53 has been preparing a comprehensive survey of the GN system.

Cole said that polling the freshmen would be "meaningless," since they would be too "emotional and confused" to give pertinent answers. Therefore the committee has decided to send polls--probably nearly five pages long--to about 500 selected upperclassmen.

The selection used consists of picking a page in a book at random and then using the last digit of the number as a means of determining who will receive polls.--If the digit is three, every third man is chosen.--"A public opinion expert helped us with this and with the construction of the poll itself," Cole asserted.

The poll would--be anonymous, but to ensure a satisfactory return of at least 70 or 80 percent they will be numbered. Thus, should the return be small, the committee could check on who had failed to respond.

The polling of upperclassmen is the last step in the survey and the committee hopes to issue the report about the first week of December. Last spring they "talked to a number of the professors giving GE courses" and sent questionnaires to all the section men. About half of the questionnaires have been returned so far.